Chapter Text
“Gladys sent us up another casserole.” Alex reports, coming in with the paper tucked under his arm and a foil-wrapped casserole dish in hand. “Have you tried telling her she doesn’t need to feed us? We’re only two people, we spent all day every day in a restaurant…”
“What kind of casserole is it?”
“Enchilada.”
“So it’s a nice change.” Jim points out, trailing after him into the kitchen. “... Should I offer to be the one to send her a casserole next time, though?”
“No, do not do that. She’s– Jim, you know the casseroles are because you won’t take their rent money, right?”
He hadn’t thought about that, but Alex has a point– the casseroles started coming after he said they didn’t need to pay rent for the downstairs unit. But it didn’t feel right to charge them to live in his basement when he has so much more than he needs, and they have a family they’re trying to raise, besides.
“... So I should let her give us casseroles, so she feels like she’s paying rent?” He opens the freezer for him.
“I don’t know, it’s too much food.” Alex rubs at his face. “Once in a while, if she wants to send up a plate of something, you know… she’s a fantastic cook. I mean, if she was looking for a job, I’d offer her one on the spot.”
“She’s a schoolteacher. Uhh, kindergarten.”
“Kindergarten. Good school?”
“Gladys works there.” Jim shrugs. That’s enough to put the school up there in his esteem, he’s never actually thought about it.
“Well… I dunno, we can’t not accept the occasional casserole, but it’s gotta be less than this.”
“... Does it?”
“We can only eat so much enchilada casserole.”
“We can, yeah, but… what if she didn’t give us the casseroles? Or the money. I mean… what if I said… don’t worry about doing anything for me, but uh… if you feel like… if you feel like you can’t just live here for free, and you wanna do something, what if I say, well this is… this is the soup kitchen I, uh, I’m working with? And you could send them a casserole, or donate to something. Something. Do something for someone else.” He suggests. It’s a thought– since Alex had started helping him with his own charity work, now he knows people who could use an occasional spare casserole.
Alex frowns thoughtfully over this for a moment. “You could do that, yeah. Just tell her… if you were letting her family pay rent, you’d just be giving it straight to this charity? And if she finds now that she doesn’t have to budget for rent, and she enjoys cooking in her time off, she wants to donate a casserole a week to feeding the needy, sure. I just feel like it takes us so long to get her dish back to her. Plus she keeps saying a couple of bachelors need someone to feed them, and I never know how to say we’re not bachelors and we feed us. Well, when we’re not just eating at work.”
“Mostly you.” He points out, coming over to wrap Alex up in a hug. “Although… I think I’m good at breakfasts now.”
“You are good at breakfasts.” Alex leans into him. “I love when you make me breakfast. Anyway, we can come back and heat up some enchilada casserole tonight if things are running smooth at the restaurant, I don’t think the dinner shift is gonna see any complications. And we’ll figure out how to handle your tenants and the rent issue.”
“I didn’t think it would be so complicated. I mean… who wouldn’t like not having to pay rent?”
“Well… they appreciate it. Hence the truly unsustainable amounts of casserole we’re getting now. But they don’t know what to do with a thing like that. Save up for a place they can own, maybe. Put the rent into their own kids’ college funds, I don’t mean they don’t know what to do with the money. But that’s a level of generosity that most people don’t know how to handle. You know? They’re not prepared for someone to come along and hand them that.”
Jim nods, but if he’s honest, he doesn’t get it. It’s a mindset he doesn’t know how to put himself in. He’s never wanted to pay rent– when he was young, he never expected to, not really. Things like that were arranged for him, he might buy a house one day… and then when he lost the life he had been raised for, well… he couldn’t have paid rent if he’d wanted to. He never did. He slept in tents and vans, squatted in condemned buildings, and spent a few nights in places where he just couldn’t get caught there. And sometimes he lived with people, who would take care of him in exchange for the ways he could take care of them. Chores he did as part of living with communes… which he guesses is a way of paying rent, but it wasn’t money. And he’d always appreciated getting to be outside of that. He didn’t want to take rent any more than he had ever wanted to pay it, he doesn’t really believe anyone should have to pay rent.
He doesn’t mind doing so for Walter, who’s too old to be out on the street when the weather gets bad and who’s letting him, it’s not that he’s so opposed to participating in society or anything. But he can opt out of collecting rent, the way most people can’t just opt out of paying it.
Alex sees the world differently. Alex doesn’t question the structure of things like rent. Most people don’t. Jim doesn’t think he’s wrong, just… that he sees things differently. But, it means Alex understands if Gladys downstairs and her family don’t see the world the way Jim does. If they feel like they owe him something when he tells them they don’t, if they can’t accept just staying in a place for free… Alex will understand wanting to do something. And if they need to feel like they’re paying something, he really would rather they cut him out of it entirely.
For now, they have an enchilada casserole in the freezer, and he guesses that’s a more acceptable form of rent, but it is true that she’s started giving them way too much food. Good food, but they hardly ever cook for themselves as it is…
“I’ll talk to her when I take her dish back if you don't see her before then.” Alex promises. “And this week… we’ve got a casserole for later. That’s one thing we don’t have to worry about doing around the house while we’re getting ready for my family to visit. I wanna take some time to clean up, catch up on chores– you wanna open up solo and I’ll come join you after I get this place under control?”
“Sure.” He nuzzles into his hair. “I’ll handle opening. We’ll eat dinner together?”
“Yeah. I’ll be there to join you for dinner for sure. Hey– if Rog comes in… I’ll handle talking to him. Call me at home if he does, have him stay behind in the office after his shift and I’ll get down there.”
“So he’s using?” Jim sags a little, letting Alex prop him back up.
“That’s what I’m worried about. I’ve got a packet put together on resources, supports, but…”
“Yeah.”
They’ve got a policy for a reason– it’s not just Jim who finds it hard to be around that stuff. Pretty much their entire kitchen staff does. Most of the staff they’ve hired are working to stay clean– it turns out restaurant kitchens are a hotbed for addiction, which he hadn’t considered when he bought a restaurant, but it also means there are plenty of people trying to stay off the stuff. He’d had to fire his original cook over drugs, but he’d been able to rehire him when he’d cleaned up, and he and Alex have worked out an official policy where the goal is to get anyone who falls off the wagon back on it and back at work, but… it’s gotta stay a clean workplace. Some of their people are like Alex– people who have dealt with addiction and have to be careful to avoid very specific substances or situations. Some of them are more like Jim– people who’ve been on it all and could get addicted to anything, given the chance. All of them, Jim himself very much included, owe it to each other to keep each other safe here.
If Roger is using, Alex will make sure he gets some support and that he knows they’ll bring him back on when he’s ready. And if he’s not, well… Alex will make sure he gets the support to stay that way. Maybe a little time off, maybe just having someone to talk to.
“Oh– Jim, before you go… I’m thinking about renting a car for when my folks are here. I’ve got some money put aside–”
“I can pay for it, honey.”
“I just want to be able to have something with enough room for everyone and a car seat for Andy.”
“Okay, well… hold onto your savings for now, and I’ll pay for a rental.” He leans down to kiss the side of his head before he lets him go. “When we go to pick ‘em up at the airport. All right, I better go– I gotta swing by Archie’s office before I open. I don’t know how long he wants to keep me.”
“Oh? Give him my best. This is about the poetry?”
“I gotta look at some formatting before he goes to press, I guess. Something. I don’t think I understand it.”
“Well, he wants you to know what it is you’ve helped fund. Wants you to see your money’s doing something, wants you to feel like it was worth it.” Alex follows him over to the door, to kiss him goodbye there. “All you have to do is look at what he shows you and tell him you think he’s doing a good job and he knows what he’s doing. You don’t have to understand the publishing end. You understand the poems.”
“He’s put out some real good poems.”
“There you go. He’s gonna put out yours when they go to print. Is that what he wants to show you? Already?”
“Probably.”
“That’s fast.”
“Well… they’re so small I guess it’s not like a big place. I wouldn’t really know.”
“I guess not. Okay, well, great. Hey– are you excited?”
“I’m not sure.” He answers honestly. “I think… I will be. But it’s not really real until it happens, you know?”
“Yeah. Well… Archie is excited, right?”
“Archie is very excited.”
“I think that’s a good sign. The other poems you’ve been reading me, from the back issues and the other things he’s published… I’ve really been enjoying that. Uh, feeling like… like we’re part of something? And… you’re really gonna be a part of it. I mean, people get to read something you wrote and feel that?”
“That’s what Elaine was saying, that… that it might be good for other people to feel like… like we’re connected to an experience. And she thought I should talk to Archie ‘cause… ‘cause she thought my poems could make more people happy.”
“Well, yours are my favorite.” Alex leans up to kiss him one more time, before straightening his tie– one of Alex’s, it usually is. It always feels a little nicer, having a little piece of Alex with him when they have separate tasks to focus on. Alex had picked out the yellow one this time, told him it suited his sunshine as he knotted it for him. “But I like when you read others to me, too. And I think they will make people happy.”
“Archie asked if I was a better poet or a better restauranteur. Still not sure I know the answer to that…”
“I think what you’re best at is just making people happy. You do it with poetry, you do it with Jim’s Mario’s, I’m betting it’s what you’ve always done. You do everything you can to take care of the people around you. You share yourself, you open yourself up, you give what you can, and you leave people feeling something special.”
“You think?” He smiles, so hard he thinks his cheeks are going to hurt before he’ll be able to stop smiling.
“That’s how you made me feel. And that’s what made me fall in love with you. Now go, tell Archie hi from me, have a good meeting, and have a good day. And I’ll come right into the office if you call.” Alex pats his cheek, smiling up at him, that soft look he gets sometimes. “Those dimples alone could brighten a person’s day.”
“I’ll see you later.” He nods, heading out with a spring in his step.
Meeting with Archie goes well– he doesn’t have to make any real decisions about the chapbook going to print, just has to say he’s happy with how things are looking. Just has to let Archie know how many copies he’s personally interested in, which is… a few. One for Alex, of course, and to send one to Lila, one for Elyse and Steven, one for Elaine and one for Reiger and one for Tony and one for Louie and one for Latka, and one to send to Bobby… he doesn’t think Tom will care about a copy, and sending one to Elyse and Steven is… a little potentially awkward, since a lot of his poetry is technically about making love to their son, but he didn’t submit anything Alex deemed too explicit. But, he thinks they’d be excited about his having a publisher for it, and that they’d want him to send a signed copy, and if they don’t actually read all the poems that’s okay, too. He still thinks they’ll want a copy.
Roger does not show up for his shift, which leaves them a little short in the kitchen for how busy things get, but even then, it’s not too bad– most of the orders are just sandwiches, single slices of pizza, the stuff they have an easy time with. They have some lunch regulars who aren’t cabbies now, guys that first came by with Kirk and Archie who like the place and like the food and show up on their own lunch breaks, who then bring in their other friends once in a while.
Jim takes his own lunch break with Walter, checks in with him about his place. He’s brought in a roommate, the two of them able to help each other with things like groceries, look out for each other. Once he’s seen him off with some breadsticks and pizza and a salad, he heads back to the office to call home.
“Yo!” Alex picks up the phone. “That you, sunshine?”
“It’s me. How’s it going?”
“Good. The house is looking beautiful. Laundry’s going, dry cleaning is ready to go out any time this week, I’m not making up the beds until the day of, but the guest bathroom’s got soaps and toilet paper and shampoo, all that stuff I’ve been letting go is done, baby. How’s Jim’s Mario’s?”
“Busy lunch service today, Rog didn’t come in.”
“Okay, I’ll give him a call at home and find out what’s going on.” Alex promises him. “I’ll come down and call from the office once the laundry’s done. How are you ? How was your meeting with Archie?”
“Good, he says hi. He’s gonna, uh… he’s gonna drop off copies as soon as he gets ‘em now they’re going to press. I am excited.” He adds, the feeling hitting him now. “I’m real excited about it.”
“Good. My published author. I’m proud of you. And a busy lunch service– a successful poet and a successful restauranteur, that’s my man.”
“Walter’s good.”
“Good.”
“He’s got a roommate now. They’ve got a dog.”
“Does the building let you have a dog?”
“They do if you’re blind.” Jim shrugs.
“Oh. Okay, then. Great. You had some lunch?”
“Yeah. You?”
“Just making a sandwich right now.”
“Okay. I’ll see you when you get in. Say hi to the plants for me.”
“I will.” Alex laughs. “They’re all doing just fine. We’ve been listening to the financial news, but I’ll set it back to Chester’s music before I go. I love you.”
“Love you, honey. See you in a little while.”
“Real soon, I just gotta hang the clean clothes back up after I eat.”
He hangs up feeling pretty good about his place in the world.